This might not be the right place to post this, but what the hey, I read this and it helped to feel motivated to eat fewer calories.

I read that when you burn calories, your body produces free radicals in order to burn them, which are damaging to your body and can cause, among other things, cancer.

According to this magazine (UK's Zest, which I love and adore), if you eat 1500 calories or less in your daily diet, you have fewer calories to burn, you produce fewer free radicals, and you can increase your life expectancy by up to 7 years.

I do have a few niggling questions about this claim (such as wouldn't athletes then have a higher rate of cancer, because they consume and burn higher calories?) but whether it's true or not, it made me want to eat fewer calories.

I've never seen a study that showed this for calorie levels as high as 1500, but there is some promising research for lower calorie levels. You can read some great summarization of the research and pros/cons here:

Sounds to me like there are some pretty heavy trade-offs though. I don't know if extending life by a few years is worth some of the side effects.

I think that you've got to balance quality of life issues as well. Finding your own optimal level of calories - the level at which you feel healthiest, most able to function well on, and are most comfortable with - seems a more practical approach.

That seems kind of odd. If youre very VERY active, you cannot live on 1500 calories cause you're more than likely to burn em off quicker and have a quicker metabolism. I don't know...just doesn't sound like it's 100&#37; true. I guess it would work for those who are losing weight, eat less, exercise, lose weight. I dunno.